


Albatross

by the_authors_exploits



Category: Dragon's Dogma
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gen, Suicide, i ship my arisen with EVERYONE pls help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 03:32:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6406954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_authors_exploits/pseuds/the_authors_exploits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adwea, Arisen and now Seneschal, had fought for many reasons and in the end the most important did not come to pass; she believes there's a way to fix it, but first she wants to make sure Errio understands why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Albatross

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of feels about this game and they won't go away.

The haze drifted across the floor; Errio, young pawn to the Arisen, gazed past the fog and through the glass like floor. He watched the invisible form of his Arisen, tall and firm and determined, as she trailed her friends through the streets of Cassardis; he could nearly hear her thoughts from the way she carried herself, from the look in her eyes as she gazed about her hometown.

When Valmiro stopped to observe a butterfly, Adwea shook her head fondly and gazed about the streets as if daring anyone to disturb her companion; when no one did bother the boy, and he moved on down towards the beach, Adwea's shoulders shook with a sigh and she turned towards the gates. With no way of communicating with her old companions, she had no need to stay for long. One more gaze over the village and she transported herself to the capitol.

She knew Quina was still at the convent, safe and hail, but she had yet to see the Duchess; so she went to the Duke's quarters, searched the rooms there, looked into the gardens, and yet she still could not find her love. It was as if she was hidden from the Arisen, and Adwea wondered if this was the fate of all Seneschal: to forever be in search of the one they loved, only to never see them, to know that at one point they had passed and the Seneschal had not been there. To know that everyone would one day pass away and the Arisen would be left to sit upon the throne for years, to ensure everything happened again one day.

Errio greeted her back to the void with a delicate boy. "Welcome, Arisen."

She was not one for words, to be fair, though her body language said all on most days; today, however, she hardly had attention for the pawn and she took a slow gait to the chair, sat stiffly, leaning heavily to one side.

"Errio," she called, hours later, for what was time in this place of eternity?

"I am at your side, Arisen," came his response.

"You know why I fought the dragon, yes?"

Errio had wondered; she had never truly explained. He had heard the rumors in Cassardis, of how Arisen lost their heart and fought for it, of how Adwea had born a deep and large scar but still lived. "I believe so."

Adwea gave him a soft smile, a strange sort of sad thing. "For my heart?" She questioned, and at the tone of her voice Errio knew he had been wrong; she lifted herself from the chair, paced slow circles about the vast emptiness. "I admit, that was part of my reasoning; I wanted my heart back. It was...is mine, and the dragon stole it from me. But there was more; if the dragon could steal my heart and I still live, what else could he do? To Valmiro, or Quina, anyone he wished; he could harm them, and I couldn't have that.

"I admit, however, my resolve for such a fight wavered frequently; I wanted my heart back, and it seems such a selfish want."

"I do not think so, Arisen."

Adwea shook her head, brushed a hand against the strands of sand blonde hair that had broken free, and tucked it behind her pointed ear; they fell free again, too rebellious to follow orders, and the Arisen's shoulders once more heaved in a sigh. "But it is, don't you think? Eventually," sometime around the time Aelinore stole her non-existent heart, between the moment of humiliation and then panic when the dragon bore her away. "Eventually, my reasons turned to something different; something...stronger, powerful, burning. I wanted Grigori gone for the safety of others; my heart..." She gripped a hand to her chest, over where the scar once resided. "My heart became an additional gain."

"Arisen?"

With a swoop, her cape twirling in the air behind her, she faced her pawn and unsheathed the sword recently attached to her hip. "But I see now; we are infinity, the dragon and the Arisen. He will come again, take another's heart, reap souls as he summons monstrosities. It will happen, and it will keep happening, I will have to see to that. And we... These mortals, these people I have known and loved, generations pass that I will again fall in love with have no choice in the matter. But I, we Arisen, we Seneschal, guardians, we have choices: to fight the dragon, to chase victory, to succumb to a selfish want of survival, sacrificing our love, or freedom. We have no choice afterwards, in bringing the dragon back; it must happen. It’s a cycle, a never ending one, eternity."

Errio took a hesitant step forward; Adwea had never been one for words, as he had observed, preferring to hear him chatter on endlessly. "Arisen, please; perhaps you are tired. Shall I..." Do what? In this void, comfort and needs were trivial. There was a vast darkness, a white haze, and a singular chair. "Would you like me to retrieve something for you, Arisen?” From Cassardis, from the capitol, from somewhere to provide her comfort. “Something to help you?"

She was running her hand, calloused from drawing her bowstring and delicately long, across the darkened blade. "Errio; we have all been lied to."

"How so?"

Finally, blessedly, her gaze lifted from the weapon and pierced him, a cold chill of blue. "I was told pawns do not feel, they are empty vessels who gladly do their master's bidding, no matter what; that they do not feel, they do not care, they are reflections and blank slates. And yet," she stepped forward to cup his cheek, pushing his mage's hood off his fluff of hair. "Yet, I have heard you cry out in pain, not a reflection of my own, when you are struck and I have heard concern when I fall; I've seen you flush with pride after a good battle, and seen you concentrate on your spells, pursue a new vocation with vigor, yet wish to return to the first one you chose."

She pulled away, smiling that sad thing again, and waved him off. "If you are pawns, what are we? We who pretend to have free will, to believe we choose to live when higher powers are guiding us, who pretend to be superior to you whose main wish is to do good while we... If you are pawns, what are we? We who follow the dragon's destruction, who act as if life is ours to take and give, when in reality all is orchestrated." A wave of her hand dissipated the fog between them and she turned back to her throne. "Go, now; I am tired and wish to rest."

He reluctantly did so, reaching back to pull his hood up once more, when something died in the air; it was a slow thing, the raise of an arm and the fall of a blade. There was the feeling of a knife dragging through him, severing something strong within, and he turned with wide eyes and a cry upon his tongue. "Master!"

But the deed was done; Adwea had pierced her heart with the Godsbane Blade. A lethal thing, one that crumbled the void, that spit them out into the sky so they might fall to the earth below, and Errio reached out for her, calling out, begging that it was not true.

"Hang on!" He cried, remembering when he had done so on the battlefield when the Arisen had faded in too difficult a fight and he had hurried to cast a healing spell.

But she would not listen this time; this time, she had used a weapon to kill Arisen and she had freed herself from the loop. Together, they hit the water, and alone Errio washed up on the beach.

He sat up in a fright, reaching outwards, calling out once more for "Master!". In that moment, it was his voice that carried over the waters and beaches of Cassardis, but it was not his hands that moved about, nor his clothes that he wore, nor his love which came running forward to greet him.

It was Adwea's hands, her chainmail plate upon her shoulders, her Aelinore that took her hand and tried to drag her away from the water's edge, to see whatever beauty the duchess had found. And then, Errio knew, as he felt Aelinore's soft skin against Adwea's--his, now--weathered palm. Then, he understood.

Adwea, wanting only freedom and safety for her people, gave the ultimate sacrifice; she killed herself, for with no Seneschal awaiting the next Arisen there was no need for a dragon to come, no need for the trials to happen, for those people to die, for the destruction and pain and fear to take place. Instead, she gave everyone the gift of free will, of choice.

And to Errio, she asked one last request: to protect those she loved as she would, from heartbreak of her death, and from that which might try to take this happiness from them. She gave him, as one final gift, the ability to live, not viewed as a pawn, but as a person.

So Errio nodded, out to sea, where he had last seen his master, and turned to follow her lover into a grand new life.


End file.
